Enterprise-specific information processing processes, such as project management, system engineering management, and product management, have a certain logic. No single system can be applied to all types of enterprises invariably, because organizational structure, environment and management vary from enterprise to enterprise. Hence, there are two disadvantages for a professional information system which is customized according to a single tenant requirement. First, the custom-made professional information system incurs a high cost. Second, not only does switching the professional information system between enterprises which differ from each other in attributes inevitably require adjusting their organizational structure and work requirements, but the complexities and difficulties in creating and maintaining the professional information system also increase with cases, as the version of a program for use in executing the professional information system varies from enterprise to enterprise.
Those enterprises with a stable work process tend to carry out information process management with a workflow management system which allows the enterprises to predefine a process and then handle the process during the run-time according to the predefined logic. Under the workflow management system, the appointment of personnel is dynamical enough to cope with any special situation; however, the workflow management system cannot be adjusted according to an organizational situation and thus is inflexible in application.
Furthermore, information for defining the situation of an object is known as its context. The object can be a person, space or information about the correlation between a user and an object being used by the user. Context also means the information about the surroundings and dynamic scenario of an object, such as the information pertaining to time, a place and a group. Context analysis involves giving considerations to whatever environmental parameters and criteria which may affect the object, for example, valuing a building by its age, and judging the features of an artist's works with reference to the artist's nationality and place of birth. Taking enterprise operational context as an example, an enterprise carries out a process in a specific environment, finishes its work and produces related information, and thus the parameters required for the enterprise context include organization, environment, process, and information. In this regard, organization, process, and information not only vary from enterprise to enterprise in breadth and depth, but also vary from project to project undertaken by the same enterprise. Context analysis entails giving considerations to plenty of criteria and thus is effective in doing a job, evaluating a situation, and observing a result comprehensively and precisely. To develop an information system for use in a professional field, it is necessary for the information system to be flexible enough to suit various enterprise operational context when operating but still retain a certain degree of professionalism, with its uncompromised parts built in the system information's entity architecture and process units. The ways the enterprises operate are defined by a configuration procedure, and data produced as a result of the operational process must be distinguished, stored and isolated easily. It is only when the aforesaid objectives are achieved that the requirements of enterprise process architecture are met.
As regards the aforesaid context definitions, any descriptive information of a situation for an individual is known as the context of the individual. The individual is occupied by a person, a place, an organization, a document, a project, and any object pertaining to the interactive relation between a person and a system, including the person and the applicable system. Context-awareness refers to the phenomenon where a system provides dynamic information related to a user's work according to a context concept or constructs an operational process according to a context concept to serve the user; as such, the system is regarded as capable of context-awareness.